Once more, with feeling
by Sardonik
Summary: It would have to be her, in the end; it always ended up being her, no matter how much she tried to foist things on other people. Harriet was the one that couldn't die, it seemed, no matter how she was maimed or wounded, able to fight if not always to remember her own name. fem!harry, Snarriet, timetravel
1. Tear you apart

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart." - Haruki Murakami  
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* * *

Harriet opened her eyes to darkness. Sometimes she woke up suddenly like that, from a deep sleep into instant though confused wakefulness, having no idea who she was, or where, or anything. She knew that, and distantly remembered that it was a side-effect from too many memory charms. She knew that, even as disorientation pressed onto her like a weight, a large heavy cat climbed on her chest while she slept, releasing its claws slightly as a warning against her actually daring to move while it was comfortable. She knew, more through muscle memory than actual, that if she lay still and let disorientation-cat get up on its own, if she lay very still and tried to be very calm, the world would come back into focus. Her eyes would decide to focus in the darkness, and who she was and where she was would come back.

BANG. BANG. BANG BANG BANG BANG.

It was too late for memories; Harriet scrambled for her wand (how had it not been in her hand? It was always in her hand) and found nothing but walls and a floor and

_ OH GOD I'M GOING TO DIE IT'S A SPIDER WEB WAIT_

a light fixture? She pulled the cord. There was a click, and then bright light blinded her. She closed her eyes, willing them to work, and counted to five very slowly. Everything was blurry, but she could see she was in a small space of some kind. Maybe a closet. She'd been in one as a child; maybe she had hidden in one (from who?) but then why was there a cot to lay on? And where on Merlin's Isle were her glasses, she could have sworn she'd spelled them to her head, but maybe something had happened she'd forgotten, things were like that. Harriet closed her eyes another moment, sitting perfectly still, trying to remember. Memories were delicate, skittish things. You couldn't force them to show. They were like cats, really. There was no herding, no rushing memories. You had to accept them on their own terms, or you got nothing at all.

BANG BANG BANG. "WAKE UP, YOU LAZY GIRL," shrilled a woman, voice dimmed only slightly by the (door?) separating them.

Nothing.

A squeak, and then the closet door opened outward. "If I have to tell you to get up one more time-" the shrill voice from earlier said, accompanied by a woman's head. Harriet looked at her, to put a face to the shrill, but couldn't make out more than a blob.

"I'm having problems seeing," Harriet said by way of explanation.

There was a pause, where she presumably glared. "Vain, just like your mother. Should have expected it. Be grateful we got you glasses at all, girl, and get out here before the bacon burns," she huffed, slamming the door behind her.

Harriet groped around a bit more- seemed there were shelves above her bed- and found a pair of glasses, which she shoved on her face with just a little more force than perhaps she needed.

The closet came into focus, and with it, some of Harriet's memory. She was back, both in time and space.

They say you can never return home. She'd never had a home- not properly- but perhaps living with the Dursley's was the closest thing to it. After all, they also said home was where they had to let you in. The saying never specified treatment past the door.

The house smelled exactly the same, and yet it wasn't as Harriet had remembered. She'd forgotten, until facing it, the undercurrents; the smell of obesity that wafted from Vernon and Dudley, the sour-mop smell that remained no matter how hard Harriet rinsed the mop out before putting it away. And, too, being downstairs in the closet in the morning, before the smell of bacon and eggs filled the house, Harriet could smell rain, and roses through the open kitchen window a few feet away. It wasn't as bad as she remembered it being.

Perhaps that was the way nightmares always were, once faced. Mrs. Weasley collapsed when faced with the boggart of her dead children; when faced with the real thing, she had only gotten stronger. Harriet didn't feel stronger, exactly. She just felt numb. Despite being tortured, hunted, having her friends and later children killed, and every refuge she'd ever used destroyed, her nightmares had usually been of simply returning to number 4 Privet Drive. They weren't nightmares where she screamed and thrashed in her sleep. Instead, they were nightmares of monotony- hours spent cleaning, sorting, doing whatever day-long project Petunia had come up with whenever Harriet looked like she wasn't quite busy enough.

It wasn't going to be like that this time, Harriet reassured herself. Even if she might want to, might want to try to please Petunia and somehow earn her affection, Harriet wasn't capable of taking her instructions. Harriet had known since kindergarten that Petunia didn't care for her; while she was glad to be alive, and to remain alive had returned under the woman's roof, Harriet simply couldn't do manual labor. Her mind-

Well. It had shattered, and been put together, and shattered, and put together so many times Harriet wasn't sure what the original had even looked like. It was no use asking other people, either; they all had a different opinion of her, and she'd long since burned all her diaries. When she had a relapse remembering- the bad things- she'd learned that remembering never led to good places. She wasn't sure by now who had done more memory charms on her- her own side or the enemy- and she'd had to try to recover memories afterward, and now there was no telling what had happened and what was simply a bad dream. Fifth year was entirely gone, and trying to get any sort of timeline from the people involved was a nightmare. Nobody could agree, in the end, what year things had happen, much less the order.

And so Harriet would have to act on instinct. It would have to be her, in the end; it always ended up being her, no matter how much she tried to foist things on other people. She was the Chosen One, though chosen for _what_ was kind of hard to figure these days. She was the one that couldn't die, it seemed, no matter how she was maimed or wounded, able to fight if not always to remember her own name.

Harriet got out of the closet, not bothering to change her clothes (she was only allowed clean clothes once a week, and it seemed that she'd already used up her quota, judging from the smell of the other clothes in there) or put on shoes (there was no way in hell she was putting on Dudley's old trainers) and went into the kitchen. The eggs and bacon were mostly where she remembered- she'd forgotten that the fridge had been organized differently before it got replaced with a lockable version. The pan heated as slowly as she remembered. Harriet downed six slices of bacon and two eggs before Petunia came back down the stairs.

"What- did you eat the bacon? I don't have the money to be-"

Harriet raised an eyebrow. Petunia was much less scary than in her memories. She was just a muggle, after all. A smirk found its way to Harriet's face.

"Find it funny, do you girl?" Vernon asked, having walked in after Petunia. "I imagine spending the rest of the morning in your closest will change your mind! In!"

Harriet looked at the large man. He didn't scare her, really; he was just a muggle, after all. But for all that he was still four times Harriet's size, and she remembered now how he'd had no compunctions against dragging her by the hair. Without a wand, she'd end up in the closet one way or another.

Several hours later, Harriet poked at a spot on the wall in the closet. She had quite forgotten how easily they'd shoved her back in there when she caused problems, before she'd gotten a wand and they knew other people had an interest in her well-being. Even if she wanted to ask for help (and she didn't really, she'd never shared the extent of what happened with anyone, and had no desire to start now) she had no idea how, without a wand. Accidental magic wasn't the sort of thing that could be harnessed to send a message- it was, after all, accidental. Petunia wouldn't unlock the closet door till she went to bed, and any attempt to unlock it on her own (if she got caught) might lead to more secure locks.

There. Uncle Vernon had started snoring. Petunia might not be asleep, of course, but she couldn't hear anything over Vernon. Harriet looped a piece of string through the edge of the door, caught the top of the catch, and opened the door. She'd learnt to keep the hinges greased after a close call earlier this summer, so it opened silently. The ground floor didn't squeak like the top floor or the stairs.

Harriet checked the calendar, barely visible in the street lamp light. A few days before Dudley's birthday. Sunday morning, technically, though there were hours to go before daylight. There was a church down the way with a rummage bin that was open Sunday- Petunia had gotten her glasses there, when Harriet had pointed out that they were free. She'd never been allowed to look at things herself- Harriet was generally not allowed to touch anything when she was out with Petunia. But if memory served- which it so rarely did, these days- they had clothes, as well, and books. She didn't remember what else, but her closet could only fit so many things. Hopefully some sort of a bag; it would be nice to have enough books and clean clothes to last until next Sunday. Harriet wasn't entirely sure she'd be allowed out of her closet before then, once she got caught.

Harriet nicked a soda from the fridge, shrugged on an old sweater from Petunia that she wore when directing Harriet through garden chores, put the spare key in her pocket, and picked up a pair of Petunia's sandles. She knew that she was dirty, though dirt didn't show on children as badly as adults, with wild unbrushed sable-black hair with bangs that never _quite_ covered her scar, no matter how thickly Petunia cut them, visibly broken glasses, and clothes that had never been meant to be worn by a small girl. There was, however, no law stating that children had to look nice. She'd just have to hope nobody who knew Petunia recognized her while she was out and tried to return her before she'd finished her errands. Children really were powerless.

Harriet walked down to the edge of the block and she was hidden from view by the neighbor's fence before daring to put on the sandals. They were a little big for her, even when she adjusted them as small as they would go, and there was no way to walk in them quietly.

_Stupid Petunia and her freakishly huge feet. Stupid night being quiet. Stupid not having a wand._

* * *

_A/N: Chapter one up! More to come, though I need to fiddle a bit. Feel free to send me a note fixing any Americanisms that don't belong. Unbeta'd! (sorry)  
_

_Reviews bring happiness!_


	2. Dark as murder

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue;

I could not foresee this thing happening to you.

-Paint it black, Rolling Stoes

* * *

By noon, Harriet was in London, with pocket money and new clothes- a boring black skirt, black sweater set, black knee-high stockings and slightly scuffed black leather mary-janes that were only a tiny bit too big. It was like a funeral. She found herself walking in the confident she-swagger she'd adopted during her difficult years at Hogwarts, the heels making a confident clack-clack, her shoulders back, and her head high, eyes quickly scanning the people, buildings, and cars around her, looking for anything that didn't fit.

Everything was wonky- she knew that things ought to appear taller, since she was in fact shorter, but instead her surroundings seemed smaller somehow. The buildings were drab and sad, the people feeling more like animated paper dolls than creatures with souls and hopes and desires. She had outgrown muggle things, it seemed; outgrown ordinariness, and grown into war and death and darkness.

Harriet stopped by a stand and got a muggle iced drink with just over half of her spending money. She was going to need to strike a balance between her old intimidating persona, and seeming like a harmless child, and the children around her were sipping cold drinks, carrying trinkets their parents had bought them, chattering to whoever would listen. Sipping a cold drink was the easiest option- and, she realized as the sugar hit her stomach, she needed to eat something. She wasn't used to needing food anymore, having relied on a complex crazy-quilt of potions and regenerative spells.

Harriet found a quiet corner with a cafe chair set aside, and sat down in the shade. There were half-a-dozen families visible, most likely out on their summer break. They wore the comfortable, slightly-wrinked clothing of tourists. It was a beautiful day, which didn't happen too often in London. Certainly there had been very few nice days where Harriet had been- Dementors had allied with Voldemort, and started breeding, leaving a fog of depression and dark magic over the entire isle.

Now, it was different. Blue skies, with artistically puffy clouds adding texture and depth, surrounded Harriet like nostalgia. It was warm, but not humid, and a slight breeze came off the Thames with a promise to keep the day comfortable no matter how high and bright the sun might rise. It was a perfect early summer day. Harriet didn't care for lovely summer days, though. It had been a lovely summer day when Harriet's son – Sirius, named after her godfather, had died.

The fog given off by the Dementors had faded, after nearly a hundred of them had been returned to Azkaban. Things had seemed as safe as they ever got, with a somewhat-reclaimed ministry and her own faked untimely death. She could go out in public, around muggles if not wizards. Harriet had gotten restless, and she'd gone out with the excuse of replenishing supplies.

That was, it seemed, what the death eaters had planned; they used the irristably beautiful day to launch a wide-scale attack, counting on restless wizards leaving home for the first time in months to take advantage of all the gaps in their defenses. Harriet was only one of a dozen witches and wizards that had come out from under heavy wards, she found out after the fact.

While the others were being picked off, while a skirmish was happening in her own home between Hermione, Ron, and seven death eaters, Harriet debated the merits of green or red apples. She argued over five cents with a cashier. She helped an old lady take her bags to the car. She stared at the blue, blue sky for a long wistful moment in the parking lot. She had never decided what action caused her to apparate back a minute too late to take little Siri and apparate somewhere nobody could even find her.

He had been four, all dark hair and bright eyes. Green eyes, a bright grass-green tinged with yellow on the very edge. So quiet Harriet had thought there might be something wrong with him until he started talking, and she discovered he was simply meticulous about everything. Even his toys had to be put away when he was done playing with them.

Now, she didn't even have a picture. Nobody else knew about him. Nobody remembered him. He would probably never exist again; children were one of those things that were far too random to count on. Oh, she might have another child; it seemed none of the curses inflicted on her _before_ had been carried with her, but it would never be the same child. Would never be her little Siri-bug.

Harriet set down her drink. Her fingers were so cold they were numb, and she could no longer stand looking at the happy families milling about. She needed to be _going_, and she could figure out where after she'd started moving. Time to get the dance started, and leave old things behind. Memories would only hurt her.

* * *

"No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning."  
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

* * *

She fell asleep in a hotel lobby. Really, she'd meant to sit down for a few minutes and figure things out, somewhere warm and safe, but the chair had been very soft, and the concierge was an older lady that rather reminded her of Mrs. Weasley, and the next thing she knew people were milling about in the soft morning sunshine, and there was a breakfast buffet.

Harriet grabbed a plate and piled it high with sausage, wondering at her anonymity. She hadn't been anonymous in nearly twenty years- first the girl-who-lived nonsense, then disfiguring scars. The sausage was extra delicious as she had eaten nothing and walked quite a bit. The hotel lobby was comfortable, but not somewhere she could stay forever. Eventually someone would notice her, and inquire about her parents, and then there would be problems. The easiest thing would be simply to return to the Dursley's.

Harriet wasn't fond of taking the easy way, though, as a general rule.

Another alternative to wandering aimlessly was to attempt to access her Gringott's account (though without a key, she was not sure how successful that would be) and get a room somewhere. And a wand. However, that would broadcast to anybody who cared to look that she had knowledge she shouldn't. She suspected she might be better off not broadcasting that sort of thing.

At the same time, however, the sorts of resources she had in her muggle life were extremely limited. She knew the Dursley's, Dudley's monstrous little friends, and Mrs. Figg. Steadfast allies, none of them. Mrs. Figg meant well, of course, but she'd certainly return Harriet to the Dursley's, who would probably lock her in the closet the rest of the summer.

Sirius Black was in Azkaban, and Harriet wasn't sure how to get him out without a wand. Remus was who-knows-where; Hermione had probably not heard of magic yet, and without the ability to apparate Harriet had no idea how to contact any of her wizarding friends. Frankly, she had no idea how to get to most wizarding places from the muggle world; she'd apparated like it was going out of fashion in her old life.

She wasn't sure if it was possible, or if possible wise, to apparate with her child's body. Still, it might be the easiest way to get where she wanted to go. But where on earth did she want to go? Everything was contaminated with memories, or else empty, leaving her mind to torture her as it wished.

* * *

"_No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself."  
― __Haruki Murakami_, _After the Quake_

* * *

In the end, Harriet found herself apparating to Godric's Hollow, to Potter's Cottage. It had been left intact- or more accurately, looking as if a bomb had gone off ten years ago. Most of the roof was gone, and there were birds nesting in the rest of it. Plants had taken over what the birds had not- ivy had made its way over the walls and in the windows, and grass had sprouted where there had once been carpet in Harriet's bedroom. The walls were still covered, under the moss and ivy, in charmed wallpaper that cheerfully spelled out the alphabet. Harriet sat down heavily next to her crib, memories of the night coming into her head, overlaying the ruins.

_ Harriet held the cat in her arms, dragging it onto her charmed broom, trying to convince it to fly. Nothing happened, but she kept going. Cats were magic. Brooms were magic. They really ought to work together._

_ Harriet's mother stood in the doorway, watching her, a smile on the corner of her mouth. "Harry, it's bedtime. Time to let the kittey go."_

_ Harriet let the cat go, pouting at her mother. Bedtime was her least favorite time. It was boring, laying in the crib, to sleep._

There really was a person in the doorway, Harriet found, and for a long moment she thought she'd gone mad, instead of simply slightly damaged. Then the cold part in the back of her mind observed that the person was taller than her mother- mannish, face obscured by a deep shadow that only a very bright day could cast. A mix of animalistic fear and reckless anger overcame her, freezing her body while her eyes frantically tried to adjust well enough to tell friend from foe. Before she could see in the shadows, the figure took a small step forward into the light.

Severus Snape stood like a black blight, eyes dark as murder glaring directly down at Harriet Potter.


	3. Ultimia expiri

"_Somewhere in his body-perhaps in the marrow of his bones-he would continue to feel her absence."  
― __Haruki Murakami_

* * *

Severus Snape woke that morning, like every morning, from a nightmare. He sat up, spelled the sweat out of his sheets and clothes, and scowled at existence. No nightmare was worse than his reality; Lily was gone, forever, and it was his fault. The only thing left of her was Potter's spawn, who no doubt would be exactly like her father. And who he would be forced to teach this year, and every year after that until the brat graduated.

To distract himself from thoughts of school, he checked on the potions brewing in his parent's old bedroom. Proceeding as expected, which meant he had nothing to do for seventeen hours. Three days until next week's periodicals came out. Over breakfast, he looked at the morning edition of the Prophet; nothing of any interest to him whatsoever. Having completed his Dumbledore-suggested summer activities- namely, brewing and relaxing- he decided that he would brood until he wanted to kill himself, truly, and then return and do more brewing. It was what he had done yesterday, and what he expected to do until the end of summer, at which time he would have the dubiously good distraction of several hundred monstrous little children to keep alive. Among them, Potter's brat.

The child that would have been his, if only he was a little less – himself.

The run-down playground occupied him for two early hours, remembering how Lily had floated down the the ground, until in the distance he saw a woman pushing a stroller, and felt the need to leave. He walked close to the river-side grass that had served as a park in his childhood, and found it full of 'hoodies'; perhaps he would return in the evening. His other haunts were likely filled up with people as well, and Dumbledore made him supervise a study hall for every summer hexing, provoked or not. That left-

Well, the place he least wanted to go, but the place he knew he must. Potter's Cottage, in the upstairs nursery, where she had died. Where he had clung to her body in hopes that she might somehow revive until Dumbledore had pried him away. It would be his first time there this summer. It was time to reset the muggle-repelling charms, at any rate.

Snape apparated into the hallway outside the room where the only woman who mattered to him had died, and stopped short.

A small black pile of clothes and hair and glasses huddled against a wall. For a long moment he was immobilized by rage- how could anyone dare to impose on his penance? And then he was doubly frozen, for the figured moved, and green eyes he had never expected to see looked up at him, their expression unreadable,. They were the same shape and color – exactly the same shape and color- as Lily's. Eyes that were alive, even as Lily's were dead. Grief poured over him, drowned him, and it was impossible to breathe, to think, even to move.

* * *

"What are you doing here?" someone asked accusingly.

* * *

_ "You idiot girl." He didn't even sound angry to Harriet- well, angry, but no more than usual. "You should have told me- here. Drink."_

_ Harriet obediently swallowed the contents of the flask, shuddering at the taste, sheer habit holding back the nausea. She could identify a dozen different pain potions by the taste- this one had been from his private store, one of the anti-cruciatus potions he kept on his person at all times these days. It tasted like death, and ginger, and stung the throat going down. But after a few moments, a warmth started in the stomach and spread, numbing just enough to stop the shaking, but not enough to impair the senses. More importantly, it acted on the mind, giving it a forced calm that negated the panic that followed the cruciatus curse. _

Harriet blinked, as if the action would clear away the man, as if he were some sort of hallucination.

_ She woke with the taste of a potion in the back of her throat. Ultimia expiri, the potion of last resort. So she'd been dead- or near-dead, again. She'd lost track of her near-death-experiences by twenty; she was twenty-one now. She swallowed, as if she could clear the taste- like mold and rotting meat and dirt- regretting the action; it seemed something had happened to the muscles on her face. Next was her hearing- the sound of waves, or perhaps traffic. It was hard to tell- her heartbeat raged in her ears over it, uneven but present. Then stinging in nerves she'd though long-gone- her face, her arms, her torso between her ribs and hips, and what she suspected might be a bit of intestine sticking out. _

_ "Idiot," a muttered voice said, now that he was certain the potion had taken effect and she could hear his lecture. Snape, apparently, if she couldn't tell by waking up with a potion down her throat. "You're going to end up dead, or worse. Stop counting on the curse-"_

_ Harriet opened and closed her mouth a few times, but found that the parts that made noise were inexplicably not working. She wasn't entirely sure if her eyelids were open or shut, but that was a normal side-effect of dying, she'd found._

_ Snape sighed, with (if possible), more irritation than normal, as if Harriet's attempt to speak was a personal attack on his healing abilities.. "Your throat is still growing back, Miss Potter. Kindly," said he snapped in a tone that indicated he felt anything but kindly, "hold still before you die." There was a pause, in which Harriet supposed he was attempting to restrain himself from hexing her instead of healing her. "Again."_

_ Harriet gestured toward her stomach. She was going for the womb, really, but her hands didn't seem to want to move that far._

_ Snape ignored her, clinically poking and prodding bits of her legs and feet, spelling them to feeling if Harriet didn't jerk in pain after being prodded._

_ Harriet waited in silence, afraid to ask, but needing to know._

_ At long last, Snape stopped poking at her. "You'll live, it seems. You've lost another toe, and part of your leg. Likely it will grow back over time." He didn't say the warnings he usually did: Don't Go Anywhere; Don't Drink Or Eat Anything, Especially Not Potions; Don't Wake Me Up In The Middle Of The Night Because You've Done Something Idiotic._

_ Harriet realized that her eyes had begun working again. The light was dim, and Snape was in the doorway, so still it looked as if someone had Petrified him. _

_ "The- fetus- was female. Seven months. I believe- the cruciatus has the side-effect of releasing adrenaline, reducing blood flow to internal organs-" Snape's mouth snapped shut, as if realizing that a textbook description would not help her emotional state. It was odd, having him attempt to spare her feelings. "It would have been dead before the entrail-expelling curse, but even then, the curse missed your womb; your might someday-"_

_ An explosion of pain erupted in Harriet's throat, which after a few disorienting moments she realized was because she was crying, her grief breaking through the healing paralytic charm, loud sobs that she might have been embarrassed about if she had cared- if anything had mattered-_

"I don't know," Harriet answered truthfully. "I had another nightmare, and then I was here. I-"

Harriet realized her voice was croaking, because she'd started crying. How odd, she thought, feeling the tears on her face. Crying was so utterly pointless, and yet she kept doing it. There must have been a time, long ago in her childhood, when crying made bad things stop happening. Perhaps in the very room she sat in, her parents had picked her up and comforted her. She wouldn't know. She only had the one memory of them.

Snape was a statue. Harriet wasn't entirely sure he was breathing, or blinking. "You dream of that night?"

Harriet nodded, wiping her tears on the inside of her sweater, where the snot was less likely to be seen by anybody.

"What do you remember?"

Harriet shrugged. "Green. Shrill laughter. A woman- My mother-" her voice shook, but she steadied herself. "Begging for my life. That's all. It happened here."

"Where are your guardians?"

"Surrey, I'd imagine."

"You're here alone?" he questioned sharply.

Harriet shrugged again. "I don't imagine they miss me, much."

"Their emotional state is beside the point," Snape sneered. "It was beyond reckless for you to come here, alone. Give me their number; I will have them come and pick you up."

Harriet laughed. "I've no idea what their number is. Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. It's none of your business whether I go back."

Snape's eyes narrowed, and then he darted forward, grabbing her arm firmly. Harriet felt herself compressed into a tube the size of a straw, and really a human body wasn't meant to be compressed that way- and found herself in a small drawing room, filled with books and dowdy furniture and not much light. Before she had much of a chance to look around- she'd never been in Snape's house, for all the years she'd known him- Snape had spelled a fire into the fireplace, thrown in floo powder, and snapped out, "Headmasters' Office, Hogwarts," making the words sound like obscenities.

"Ah, Severus, my dear boy-" came a voice from the other end. "Come on in, I've just set up for tea-"-

And Harriet felt her arm grabbed again, and was pulled through the fireplace into the Headmaster's office.


	4. Tea and Scones

_I needed all my strength to_

_Stand up to your agenda_

_I said it, I said it again_

_I never wanna become_

_Stuck in your machine_

_Blue Foundation, As I Moved On_

* * *

Harriet felt as if she should be coping less well. She ought to be screaming, or running, or trying to apparate out and splinching herself. After all, the last time she had been in the headmaster's office- bad things had happened. Things she'd erased from her mind as best she could – screaming things, wrong things, things that made her sick to remember had once existed in her life.

She closed her eyes for a moment as the Coping threatened to dissipate. The headmaster's office- it smelled like Hogwarts. Harriet found that unbelievable comforting. It smelled like magic and potions and safety and rules and a thousand years of learning.

It smelled like tea and scones.

Harriet realized that she held a teacup filled with rich-smelling tea in one of her hands, and had a scone in the other hand, and was sitting on a cushioned chair that was just the right height for her short legs. No matter how many times she had pushed away a relapse and come back to reality, it always felt like waking up from one dream into another.

"- the spitting image of her father, impossible to mistake her-" A bitter, sardonic voice argued from her right side.

Harriet conjured into her mind an image of her father, spitting. It was very hard to imagine, as the only person Harriet had ever seen spit on a regular basis was Dudley, and he looked rather different to her father.

On her left, a patient (if ever-so-slightly-exasperated) man interrupted him, probably trying to stop any too-damaging vitriol from escaping into the room and entering Harriet's delicate ears. "Now, Severus, accidental magic can happen to anyone-"

Severus was quite capable of interrupting, as well. "And I'm sure that is what she would like you to believe! I, for one, find it unlikely that it is s_imply a coincidenc_e that she chose to loiter in that exact spot- doubtless got in trouble at home, ran off to avoid punishment, and chose a location so that when we _found_ her we would feel too sorry to discipline-"

"Severus!" Dumbledore calmly but firmly cut him off mid-rant, "It is not possible for a child- especially one too young for Hogwarts- to purposefully apparate anywhere. Clearly, it was accidental; she doesn't even have a wand. Even if she was trying to escape from a punishment- which I find hard to believe, all the reports indicate that she's an extraordinarily well-behaved child- the location and method of travel would have been accidental."

Harriet's instincts kicked in as she parsed what was said. "Reports?" Reports sounded like a bad thing. She didn't remember hearing about reports before unless her life was in danger. Was her life in danger already? She was starting to enjoy escaping from closets instead of death eaters.

Severus sent her a withering look, and the headmaster looked ever-so-slightly startled.

"Yes, of course. Surely you don't think we would have cut you off entirely?" The headmaster gave her Kindly Look Number One. It was his generic kindly look, eyes crinkled enough into a smile to look friendly, but not enough to be mistake as condescending. Harriet hadn't seen that look directed at her since she was very young- if ever. She suspected that he reserved Kindly Look Number One for children he wasn't very familiar with.

Harriet was really not quite sure what she thought of that. Her head was still spinning a bit- the headmaster was so young now, so very young (even though he was, of course, older than Harriet had ever been), and the last time she'd seen him he had been so very sick. The last time she had seen the headmaster, they'd been- well, perhaps not friends exactly, but close enough. He'd trusted her with as many secrets as he entrusted to anyone, crazy paranoid bastard that he was, and he hadn't given her any version of the Kindly Look for years. They'd grown past that. Apparently this was no longer the man Harriet remembered, however.

She carefully set down her cup and scone down in what appeared to be their respective plates (decorated with flowers like muggle dishes; only, unlike muggle dishes, the flowers swayed gently in an invisible breeze) on a low table next to her chair. She took the moment to make sure her occlumency was working- keeping the dangerous memories buried, keeping strong emotions from surfacing unbidden; she had no desire to embarrass herself with a display of accidental magic.

"You've got people spying on me," Harriet said in her careful voice. Careful Voice was her taking the emotion out of a sentence; she'd found people interpreted it midway between a question, accusation, and statement. This tended to be much more useful for getting information than any of the three alone, and put people quite a bit off-balance if they were not used to dealing with her.

The headmaster gave Severus a short, quick look before glancing back at Harriet. A ten-year-old Harriet would have thought it was commiseration at her terrible behavior, but he'd shared enough memories with 27-year-old Harriet in future-past that she knew it was an odd thought he was filing away about Severus' spying, to be pondered upon later as he paced away the night in his office, alone. "Spies would be putting it strongly. I have people- friends of mine, check up on you from time to time."

Harriet felt herself glare. "Who? I don't remember anyone checking up on me."

The headmaster looked at Harriet for a long moment. Harriet allowed him to look at her, noting that he very gently rifled through memories of Petunia that had simmered up to the surface. The headmaster had been dead by the time Harriet had begun learning occlumency in earnest; Snape had never been so gentle. Then again, Snape had never had any reason to be; no doubt the Headmaster did not wish to make her suspicious, nor to give her a lingering headache.

"Harriet," the Headmaster said at last, determination appearing faintly under his grandfatherly persona, "What happened that made you so upset?"

Harriet slouched in against herself instinctively, looking down. "Nothing, really, I was just... sad." _Nothing, really. Just flashbacks of a past that will now never be. Children I will never have, that I could never have saved, people who will now never be in existence. Freaking out over seeing things whole that were once destroyed. Freaking out because I am still the Chosen One, and I still have no idea who to trust or how to fix everything. If things can be fixed._

Gently, Dumbledore repeated himself. "What happened?"

He was being kind, but Harriet knew he wasn't going to give up easily. She took a moment to put away things she didn't want him to see- to remix her memories a bit, just enough to form a coherant-ish narrative. She didn't bother putting too much coherency in; jumbled memories were just about as hard to sort through as hidden ones, after all. It had driven future-past Snape mad, and had on occasion bought enough time to hide important memories from Voldemort himself. Once or twice.

Looking up, Harriet chose her memories carefully, but let words tumble out in a useless jumble. "I was- just-" It only took a moment of eye-contact for the Headmaster to pick through her head: Harriet locked in the closet, sometimes for days on end; finally leaving, wandering, crying alone. Harriet shifted her gaze to one of the whirligigs on his desk when she judged her strength waning. It was silver and black, and swirled and clicked. She wasn't sure what it did, other than look interesting. That might be enough, really. This was a man that read knitting patterns for fun."I don't want to go back," she said, feeling as if her throat had been hit with a swelling curse. "But I don't really- I don't really have somewhere else to go, either, and then I was- in that house. It was-"

Harriet paused, trying to figure out the words that would fit into that sentence, and realized there _weren't_ words. It was too big and small all at once, and she couldn't- wouldn't- try to pull it down to her level. She was just a person, one failed person who just couldn't get anything right, and what was in the house-

Sacrifice. Courage. Honor. Betrayal. Freedom. Death.

It was always Death, in the end, no matter what direction Harriet went.

But never, not even when it should have been, her own.

* * *

_Best,_

_You've got to be the best_

_You've got to change the world_

_and use this chance to be heard_

_Your time is now_

_-Butterflies and hurricanes, Muse_


	5. Arrogance

Oh, can't anybody see  
We've got a war to fight  
Never found our way  
Regardless of what they say  
-Roads, Portishead

* * *

Dumbledore examined the waif of a girl in the green-and-cream chintz chair in front of him, sitting next to a shadow of black cloth and anger who occasionally taught Potions.

For several minutes after shuffling through the surface of Harriet Potter's mind, Dumbledore had walked her through admitting what he now knew about her life. She had been raised, reluctantly, by her Aunt and Uncle, being given hand-me-downs and sleeping in a closet under the stairs, made to do chores that were inappropriate for her age. She had been told nothing- nothing!- of the magical world, much less her loving parents. She had been – sometimes violently- discouraged from asking questions about the odd things that happened to her- bits of accidental magic like all magical children experienced, and had learned to ignore anything different or odd.

Dumbledore had paid attention to more than her words, however. He noticed that she cringed slightly if those around her moved too quickly; he doubted she was even aware that she did it. He noticed that she chose her words carefully, attempting to minimize anything that was strange or unusual, even in a room filled the the strange and unusual. Harriet was much like her mother, had her mother been unloved and unwanted; a strong temper, kept barely in check, a strong but futile sense of right and wrong, and an unwillingness to seek revenge. Most of all, Harriet was possessed of a silent stubbornness that came out when Dumbledore tried to pry too much into her home life

He felt out of his depth, which was saying quite a lot. He could easily flit between prophecies and parents, muggle-magical relations and centuries-old-politics, not to mention the insanity of the logistics of keeping a thousand students happy and well-taught and safe through teenage hormones and a deadly inexperience with magic that they needed to use on an everyday basis to function in adult society.

Dumbledore had been a teacher, and then a Headmaster, for most of his life. Before that, he had been an insufferably arrogant genius. He was aware that many people still found him insufferable, and did not doubt that he was still arrogant, but at nearly one-hundred-fifty years of age, he felt he could be a little arrogant from time to time.

If for no other reason than that he knew more, and had more experience than those around him, and he was usually right about things. Still.

Dumbledore found himself wondering if he was being arrogant, by being angry at Petunia for raising her niece the way she had- neglecting her, leaving her completely ignorant of wizarding customs and law, and just not loving her the way he had been raised one did family members, no matter what. Arrogant or not, he was furious, with the kind of cold impotent fury he hated feeling toward muggles. Logically, he knew they were just as good and bad as magical people- but still, over and over again, he saw their cruelty toward those that were different. He understood, better than he would ever say, even under Veritaserum, why there could be a violent uprising against muggles. Why people had rallied to Voldemort's side when he promised freedom from the restrictions that so often allowed muggles to treat wizards tyrannically, that limited even the simplest magic from being used for personal gain if it had to do with muggles in any way.

What on Merlin's green earth could he do? Much as he might wish it, it was wrong- flat-out wrong- to Imperius Petunia into acting loving, or Obliviate her and plant false memories. The simplest solution was to put Harriet with a wizarding family, of course; anyone would be happy to take her in.

But that was just not an option. It would have been, if Voldemort was truly gone. Dumbledore, however, was cautious to the point of paranoia- and he had kept a close watch on the world. Voldemort might have fallen, but – it seemed- he was not yet dead. There were always rumours and whispers, of course, but Dumbledore had a knack for discerning which ones were false, and which ones were watered-down versions of a harsher truth. Legilimency helped greatly with that. Voldemort still existed, though much weakened, and he was starting to send tendrils into the wizarding world. He was looking for a way to revive himself.

There were always madmen in the world, seeking to dominate it and control it and live forever, like cancer. Like viruses, that spread everywhere they could, paying no heed to the health of their hosts. Dumbledore considered himself part of the immune system that combated those things. Part of the job of combating evil was knowing what it wanted- and Voldemort would, above all else, seek to understand and use or destroy that which had caused him to fall. Voldemort would target Harriet. Most likely, he would send spies to try to find her- Dumbledore had an entire shelf of gadgets devoted to Harriet's safety, and one of them marked the status of her secrecy. She was still hidden- the magical world as a whole did not know where she lived, and beside himself, McGonagall, and Hagrid, no specific people in the magical world knew, either. He would trust them with his life, Harriet's life, and – if it came down to it- the future of the wizarding world.

It was arrogance, perhaps, but it was tempered with wisdom and grief and hope.

* * *

Author's notes:

Thank you so much for reviewing! I like getting feedback, seeing what works and what doesn't.

I am so extremely tempted to simply answer the questions that have been brought up, but that's terrible writing technique. So. They have been properly noted, and I will do my best to address them in-story in due time.

BadGirlgoesworse- Regarding format- it's very very hard to decide chapter length. Right now I'm mostly going by theme. I think you're supposed to have a separate chapter for each POV, though, which is hard to combine with themes, and pacing. Also, I tend to be more of a big-picture girl; I don't think in consecutive order, nor always write chapters in the order they happen. Combine that with basically writing two storylines, and having one of them NOT at all in consecutive order, and I'm a little worried I will confuse my eternally-patient readers. In a story with a completely unreliable protagonist and lots of flashbacks, it is especially important to have good transitions.

Except, I'm rubbish with transitions.

I will endeavor to provide timely updates as apology.

-Sardonik


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